Back on track, and the first draft

It's been almost two weeks since I last looked at For Better or Worse. And what a busy two weeks it's been! The school holidays ended; a new short story demanded to be written and an older one drafted; I added more content to this blog and had to study for, and sit, two editing tests. All while doing my best to be an active parent and semi-social human being. No wonder so many writers turn into recluses!

Anyway, I haven’t stopped thinking about For Better or Worse with the excellent comments in mind. This is what we had:

Martin regained consciousness while entering the MRI machine, a dull feeling his body was broken in many places by the car accident. His wife peered through the observation window, oblivious to the chaos about to ensue. When he tried to voice an objection, a tube down his throat allowed only a gurgle. Straining against the restraints only earned him an injection of sedatives. As his vision faded, he realised he could do nothing to prevent the examination from exposing his unearthly origin.

I like the story, a lot, but feel it lacks drama and tension. A good story should allow the reader to experience the events and sympathise with the characters. I decided on the following:

Martin regained consciousness while entering the MRI machine with a dull feeling his body was broken in many places. A tube down his throat turned his objection into a gurgle. When he strained against the straps holding him firmly to the gurney, a nurse gave him an injection of sedatives. As his vision faded, he looked to his wife peering through the observation window, oblivious to the chaos about to ensue, and realised he could do nothing to prevent the examination from exposing his unearthly origin.

As you can see, I’ve dropped “from the car accident” as it’s irrelevant for such a short story, and added “with” to the first sentence to fix a possible grammatical error and make the words flow more smoothly, per Stingingthetail’s recommendation (thanks!).

I like Martin having a wife who doesn’t know about his secret, but the second sentence was too distant and may have been in her point of view. She is now mentioned as Martin would see her and moved mentioning her to the last sentence and toned it down to encourage re-reading.

I also like that a tube down his throat prevented him from voicing an objection, but it was telling rather than showing – something to avoid in fiction. Shortening the sentence should also downplay the reason for Martin’s objection, allow readers to draw their own conclusion.

I considered getting rid of “oblivious to the chaos about to ensue”, but feel it creates tension and intrigue by raising the questions ‘what chaos is about to ensue?’ and, ‘why doesn’t she know about it?’ This sets the reader up for the final sentence, designed to tie up the loose ends, give a little surprise twist and reason to read it again to get the full story, and, hopefully, read more of my work.

I saved this as FBOW-1 and hope to put it away for at least a week before applying the first coat of polish.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments, both for and against the changes.

Emanuel

An update and something to whet your appetite

Thanks for all the comments on my last post.

I'm a little late posting this week due to parental responsibilities (taking the kids to three movies), starting back at uni, adding content to this site, and the endless distractions that are Facebook and Twitter.

I hope to post something of interest in the next few days. Until then, here is a snippet of a fictional piece I wrote in class this afternoon. I hope you enjoy it.

Emanuel


Trust me. I didn't push her off the pier. I was just standing there minding my own business when a bunch of kids ran past me, screaming all the while. Why someone would let their kids run free like that, I don't know. They should have been on a leash or something. Scare all the fish away they did. How's a guy s'posed to catch a meal with that ruckus?
     So, I'm standing there with my fishing rod in one hand, a stubby in the other, when the mother comes running toward me shouting for the kids to shut up.
     Hypocrite.
     She made more noise than the kids! I wanted to say something to her - on behalf of the other fishermen too scared to face up to her - but I didn't. I just leant back to cast out a new line and bam! She ran straight into me and fell over the railing. I didn't even know she was there.
     Promise...


Do you believe the narrator?
Why/why not?

First draft

As mentioned in my previous post, during the coming weeks I will develop my writing style by creating a short story and exploring various story-telling techniques. I welcome your comments on both the process and the story itself. While I plan on submitting the finalised draft for publication, I’ll be aiming for a student magazine and, if it gets published, will credit this blog’s community. So, please get involved. I’d love to know what you think.

First things first – the story. If I don’t have an idea, I ask myself what the story is going to be about. i.e. what do I feel like writing? I get a lot of positive feedback on my speculative fiction stories, so I’ll stick to one of those.

All stories need a point of view character. For a little fun, my main character will be an alien disguised as a human. I’ll make it a male and his name will be Martin.

When developing a story I tend to go for the most dramatic situation I can think of. After a car accident, Martin regains consciousness about to be scanned by an MRI machine that will reveal his true origin. Something needs to stop him from moving or objecting so I’ll strap him to the gurney and shove a tube down his throat. I like that. I’m hoping his being restrained will create some sympathy for Martin, as he really is a nice guy… err, alien.

The story is starting to take shape in my mind. At this point, I usually give some thought to secondary characters to give the story depth and perspective. Perhaps an unnamed group of faceless doctors and nurses to represent society, and a concerned wife. A human wife that doesn’t know his secret – the plot thickens!

I find writing the first draft in longhand helps to get the story down in a quick but controlled manner, while allowing me to switch off my analytical mind and free my creativity. I haven’t mastered getting into this frame of mind but it has become easier with practice. I promise to share my techniques, for now the story is screaming to be told…

Martin regained consciousness while entering the MRI machine, a dull feeling his body was broken in many places by the car accident. His wife peered through the observation window, oblivious to the chaos about to ensue. When he tried to voice an objection, a tube down his throat allowed only a gurgle. Straining against the restraints only earned him an injection of sedatives. As his vision faded, he realised he could do nothing to prevent the examination from exposing his unearthly origin.

Time to digitise the story. I open my new story template, save the file as Draft 0 and type it out with minimal changes. As usual, I’m not entirely happy with the wording and can see many ways to improve it. I remind myself it’s only a rough draft and run it through the spellchecker. While doing so, a working title springs to mind: For Better or Worse.

I rename the file to FBOW-0, and save it to a new folder named FBOW and do my best to not open them for a few days.

Emanuel

It all starts with an idea

Those who know me would say I’m enthusiastic about the English language and the creative writing process. Whenever I see a series of words joined in a logical way I’m compelled to read them. An avid reader since the age of six, I’ve long been fascinated with stories of all kinds from Golden Books to comics; short stories to novels; science fiction and fantasy to romance. Yes, even romance.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a vivid imagination and been able to tell a story in an entertaining way, but when it comes to putting those same stories into writing, I’ve found it extremely difficult, fallen short of my expectations and eventually given up. But not any more! Last year I decided to follow my dream of becoming a novelist and enrolled in a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing.

Through this blog, I’ll be sharing my voyage from obscurity to Published-dom, in the hope of sparking discussion among writers of all levels, inspiring other emerging writers and increasing our knowledge through a mutually beneficial relationship. In the process, we might even have a little fun.

During my ramblings, please keep in mind that writing is a very personal process. I’ve adapted most of my writing habits from those of like-minded writers, my tutors and prolific authors. However, no method is perfect. What works for me may not work for you as our brains process information in very different ways.

Some writers talk about ‘letting the characters speak for themselves,’ and ‘allowing the story to develop of its own accord.’ I have a lot of respect for people who write this way, but it just doesn’t work for me. I like structure and order, and need to control my narrator to minimise time wasted drafting ideas that randomly try to take over the story. I tend to think a lot about the story, characters, themes and settings, and develop each in my mind before committing to a written plan. And I plan an awful lot. Maybe too much, as you might notice :)

I researched tried and proven approaches used by prolific and successful authors. I visited tons of websites and blogs dedicated to the writing process, borrowed tons of books from my local library and read as widely as I could. Whenever I came across a technique that sounded interesting, I tried it. If it didn’t work, I just try another - no matter how disheartened I became. Eventually, I devised my own hybrid process of borrowed techniques, which I’ll likely finetune as I gain more experience.

Over the next few weeks I hope to create a piece of micro-fiction and use it in a number of exercises that explore the elements of story telling - such as point of view, tense, voice - and various structural and language techniques. I’ll likely stick to speculative fiction as it’s dear to my heart and is long overdue an increase in popularity.

I welcome your feedback during all stages of the writing process and would love to hear your opinions - even if they conflict with my own. Please also keep in mind that I’m an emerging writer and have a LOT to learn before I can claim to be an expert.

I hope you find this an exciting and entertaining process, and look forward to your comments,

Emanuel